American Society of Cinematographers Likes the Look of 'Skyfall'

Roger Deakins won the top feature-film award from the American Society of Cinematographers on Sunday night for "Skyfall," meaning that "Argo" only went two-for-three on a weekend of film awards ceremonies.

While "Argo" won at the Scripter Awards on Friday and the BAFTA Awards earlier Sunday, it was not even nominated for an ASC Award, where Deakins' work on the James Bond movie "Skyfall" won out over Danny Cohen for "Les Miserables," Claudio Miranda for "Life of Pi," Janusz Kamninski for "Lincoln" and Seamus McGarvey for "Anna Karenina."

All except Cohen are nominated for the cinematography Oscar. In Cohen's place, Robert Richardson was nominated by the Academy's Cinematographers Branch for "Django Unchained."

The win was the third competitive ASC Award for Deakins. He also received the ASC's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, though he is 0-for-9 in Oscar nominations going into this year's show.

Deakins was not in attendance at the awards. Earlier in the day, Miranda won a BAFTA Award for "Life of Pi" but had opted to attend the ASC Awards rather than the BAFTAs, where "Pi" director Ang Lee accepted on his behalf.

"Life of Pi" is considered the favorite to win an Oscar in two weeks, though the category is exceptionally competitive and Deakins is long overdue for an Academy Awards win.

Films winning the ASC Award have gone on to win the Oscar slightly less than half the time in the awards' 26-year history, including five times in the last 10 years. When Deakins, left in file photo, won the ASC Award for "The Shawshank Redemption" in 1995, he lost at the Oscars to "Legends of the Fall"; when he won for "The Man Who Wasn't There" seven years later, he lost the Oscar to "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."

In the television categories, ASC voters were deadlocked in the One-Hour Episodic Series category, where Balazs Bolygo and Kramer Morgenthau tied for episodes of "Hunted" and "Game of Thrones," respectively.

Bradford Lipson won the ASC's Half-Hour Episodic Series Award for an episode of FX's "Wilfred," while Florian Hoffmeister won the Television Movie/Miniseries honor for PBS Masterpiece's "Great Expectations."

Honorary awards went to Dean Semler ("Secretariat," "Dances With Wolves," "The Road Warrior"), who received the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award from Angelina Jolie, and Rodney Charters ("24," "Shameless," "Dallas"), who was given the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award for Television.

"I love actors and I want to thank all of them for hitting their mark and finding my light," said Charters in accepting his award.

Robby Muller, whose work includes "Paris, Texas," "Breaking the Waves" and "Down by Law," received the International Achievement Award.

Curtis Clark, who has shot "The Draughtsman's Contract" and "Triumph of the Spirit" along with making hundreds of commercial and serving on the ASC Technology Committee, received the President's Award and called the transition from photo-chemical processing to digital "the most disruptive transition in cinematographic history."

The American Society of Cinematographers is not a guild or union, but an invitation-only professional organization of about 350 top cinematographers.

The ceremony took place in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Center.